Wednesday, June 23, 2010

In Viacom v YouTube court rules YouTube qualifies for DMCA protection

In Viacom v. YouTube, the Court has ruled that YouTube qualifies for DMCA "safe harbor" protection.

Opinion and Order



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5 comments:

Zepherin said...

This is what happens when the entertainment industry sues a group that has a deep pockets and readily available resources to defend itself.

Chase said...

What bearing, if any, might this decision have on the LimeWire decision? Seems there are parallels, no?

Sure LimeWire knew their software was used to traffic in infringing content, just as YouTube knew, but unlike YouTube, LimeWire had no ability to directly remove infringing content.

The judge in the YouTube case argues that awareness of general infringement does not constitute infringement by the tech operator (so long as action is taken when informed of specific infringement in a manner that is actionable).

raybeckerman said...

This decision has absolutely nothing to do with anything in Arista v. LimeWire. This case was closely related to UMG v. Veoh and Io v. Veoh.

Anonymous said...

Page 21 of the Opinion goes into detail on this:

"Grokster, Fung, and Lime Group involved peer-to-peer file-sharing networks which are not covered by the safe harbor provisions of DMCA § 512(c)."

"In a setting of distribution of software products that allowed computer-to-computer exchanges of infringing material, with the expressed intent of succeeding to the business of the notoriously infringing Napster the Grokster Court held that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties."

Matt Fitzpatrick said...

Ruling passes the "Duh" test. If YouTube doesn't qualify for DMCA safe harbor as a user-uploaded content hosting provider, what does?

Next step: Hey YouTube, now that you have precedent on the DMCA safe harbor, how about removing those fair-use-blind Audible Magic auto-mutes and actually, uh, using the DMCA safe harbor?

"General knowledge that infringement is 'ubiquitous' does not impose a duty on the service provider to monitor or search its service for infringements." (p. 20)

Too bad Congress in 1998 didn't anticipate future methods of user-to-user sharing, and limited DMCA safe harbor protection to stuff like websites. In a more just world, the quote above would apply to LimeWire just as well as it does to YouTube.